RADIO PRAGUE 1968, 2021

 2-channel audio transmission (03:35min) for Radio International by Klasse Philipsz at Senatsaal HfBK Dresden, Oct 28-29, 2021 and Manifesta14 Prishtina, July 22 - Oct. 30, 2022

The sound piece refers to the relevance of the radio as a medium, thinking back in time to when it was used as an essential means to broadcast crucial information to the public.

In 1968, Czechoslovakia’s civil resistance against the Warsaw Pact troops was coordinated through radio broadcasting, advising the public to stay calm, remove street signs and transmitting information internationally. As in 1945, citizens defended the Radio Prague radio station, reporters broadcasted until soldiers entered their offices and the radio broadcast moved ‘underground’, transmitting from unknown places.

The piece combines the repeated radio interval signal, enclosing gaps of silence in -between, an original radio recording from 1968 and a composition by Bedřich Smetana, all taken from archive material. Due to the spatial acoustics and the poor quality of the material, the voice becomes progressively difficult to understand, confronting the listener with the dissatisfactory feeling of not being able to retrieve the information, one seeks.